In an incident that seems straight out of a thriller, a murder investigation in Chhattisgarh's Jashpur district has been turned completely upside down. The supposed victim, a man whose burnt body was identified and buried over two months ago, walked into a police station alive and well, leaving authorities stunned and a case in disarray.
The Bizarre Reappearance That Shook the Case
Simit Khakha, a daily-wage labourer from Sitonga village, had been working in Giridih, Jharkhand. Unbeknownst to him, back home in Jashpur, four of his acquaintances were arrested and awaiting trial for his alleged murder. The case against them was built on the discovery of a charred body in a forest in October and what police claimed were eyewitness accounts of a crime.
Simit's family had reported him missing after he failed to return home with the group he had travelled to Jharkhand with for work. Police informed them that the suspects had killed Simit during a drunken brawl on October 17. The investigators stated that the accused had even confessed to the crime. For 61 days, Simit was considered dead, and his family had performed his last rites.
A Flawed Investigation Exposed
Simit's sudden and unexpected return has thrown the entire police investigation into question. It has revealed serious lapses in procedure, including:
- Relying on apparently unverified eyewitness testimony.
- Accepting a confession without concrete corroborating evidence.
- Failing to conclusively establish the identity of the charred body before filing charges.
The four accused men spent weeks in jail for a murder that never happened. The actual identity of the person whose burnt body was found in the forest last October remains a mystery.
Aftermath and New Probe Ordered
Following this embarrassing revelation, SSP S M Singh announced that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been formed. This team has a dual mandate:
- To establish the true identity of the unknown murder victim whose body was mistakenly assigned to Simit.
- To investigate the alleged procedural violations and lapses by the initial investigating officers that led to this grave error and the wrongful imprisonment of four individuals.
This case has highlighted critical gaps in police investigation protocols in the region, raising serious concerns about the reliance on confessions and the need for rigorous forensic and identification processes before concluding a case.
